


let the right one in

by machibouke



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, Light Angst, Little bit of Fluff, M/M, Mild Language, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Pining, Porn with Feelings, RPF, Sexual Content, Sexual Experimentation, Undecided Relationship(s), jun is an s, nino has issues, year: 2004
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 08:44:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7677721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/machibouke/pseuds/machibouke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino inadvertently helps Jun out during a Sho-related crisis, they kind of fall along the way and get more than they bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let the right one in

**Author's Note:**

> this turned out a lot longer than i wanted... i got carried away. ;A; sho is tagged but he doesn't physically feature, only mentioned in and around the story. it's kind of nino-centric in a way too? aaaaand this is about as dirty as i'll ever be writing for a while. i feel weirdly bad because i rarely write porn pleasebenicetome. ._.
> 
> (inspired by a portion of the lyrics from _tokyo summer_ by mounties):
>
>> _some of this feels so dangerous and it's hard to resist/  
>  some of this is just so much safer to let go than to miss (than to miss)_

  
Nino is just nudging his twenty-first birthday when he comes to the rather unsettling conclusion that he is most probably bisexual. Hate it or like it, everything is pointing to that principal theory. There is Sho, who had been going on-and-off with him since they befriended each other years back, but lately he had gone cold and refused to even look Nino in the face sometimes (and if he did, there was always fear in that expression – usually because of the recurring talk of commitments).

There’s also Ohno, in a way. If Sho was the one Nino was testing out more-than-platonic-territory with, then Ohno was the one that Nino explored the proverbial bedroom with; they simply let off sexual tension whenever it unexpectedly came up. Nino perennially found himself tangled up with Ohno in green room closets most afternoons after tapings whenever they had a particularly busty female guest on their regular show. It was usually over in a few minutes, leaving Ohno sated and Nino little time to consider how irresponsible he was being because they were always being shuttled off somewhere straight afterward.

Of course, Aiba was simply cute, harmless and fluffy. And he did _not_ want to be left out of the loop. He only came to Nino after an _accidental_ slip of the tongue from Ohno on one of their drunken nights together. _“Nino will do anything for you if you ask nicely enough,”_ was what Aiba relayed back to him. Nino was angry, and he was going to give Ohno a piece of his mind when he was next available, but everything just happened naturally after that and he forgot. They were always around each other anyway, what difference would doing something here and there make? So whenever Aiba and Nino were drunk together at Aiba’s place, he asked for sexual favours and kisses in between.

Nino was fine with all that happening; he’s forever assured that he still likes boobs. Appreciates them, like they’re an art form to be admired (mostly from afar). In short, girls still do stuff for him.

But then there is Jun.

Nino isn’t entirely sure what set this off, or who even instigated it for that matter. Personally, he thinks it might have had a little something to do with the rebellious personality streak that Jun adopted sometime during early 2002. The attitude change was primarily meant for his role in _Gokusen_ , but it had slowly started to seep into real life too, working dangerously hand-in-hand with Jun’s late-blooming adolescent stage. He was snappish to nearly everyone he came across, quite unbelievably became even _more_ of a monster to get out of bed in the morning, and no longer responded to anyone’s texts or calls unless they were strictly work-related.

Nino vividly remembers Sho being the most vocally shocked by this, formerly being the recipient of ass o’clock early-morning messages from a much more mellow Jun only months before. Those infamous texts innocently asking at 4:30 in the morning if Sho was still awake and if he had some time to spare to talk.

Was it an attitude modification, dedication to his character, or just pure testosterone? Nino could never narrow it down to just one thing. And he could never openly ask Jun about it either – they weren’t close enough for that (Jun’s words not his), and left him only speculating in his own thoughts. Little did he know it would prove to become Jun’s ordinary mood in future.

But at the tender, slightly horny age of twenty-one, Nino figured it would be pretty interesting to be on the receiving end of this version of Jun during sex – another one of the more ambiguous aspects to Jun’s meticulous private life. But in a twisted way, Nino’s humble thought became a reality.

Jun had been the one who stormed up to him late one April morning in a hallway, visibly fuming and in need of a human outlet for his frustrations. He had so often bottled those up inside that it was starting to drive him borderline insane. Although they weren’t really buddies yet by that point, this was commonplace over their late teenage years – when Jun needed to vent, Nino usually came into it somewhere and was the patient listener, the bearer of advice, and sometimes the scapegoat when Jun just wanted to have a go at someone.

Once when this happened in the early 2000s, Sho had been the dominant topic of vexations. It was common knowledge in the group how Jun felt towards Sho, and whether Sho was being deliberately ignorant about it or truly didn’t know anything, nothing ever went down well between him and Jun. Despite that, Jun still couldn’t let go of his feelings. Nino had confessed to being more or less in the same shoes as Jun – only a whole lot less pissed off about the progression (or lack thereof) of things. And that set off a chain reaction of mutual identification. They suddenly understood each other a lot better after that – along with sharing some sympathy – and then started to spend more time together out of work.

It was somewhat different now. Nino could see from Jun’s eyes that it was kind of urgent; he was handling it badly. He tried the handle of a staff bathroom nearby. Usually all bathrooms were locked and only staff members had the keys to them, but this one had been luckily left unlocked, probably by some new staffer who didn’t know the protocol. Jun silently slid in first. Nino looked around and budged in after him, expecting to talk things out and instead found himself suddenly rammed into the wall and forced between a pair of amazingly strong thighs. That was when it dawned on him that Jun was harbouring a slightly _different_ set of frustrations this time around. But once again, they centred on Sakurai Sho.

Because of that, there wasn’t a whole lot that could be done. Jun kept cursing Sho between breaths while rutting himself against Nino.

Being more than turned on by the situation himself, he was only too happy to go along with what Jun was doing. Being accommodating for someone was almost like a knee-jerk reaction for Nino. He could only comply and make himself useful in such circumstances. If Jun was seeking out a stress-reliever, then he would do it.

This ignited yet another series of events. All of a sudden it became acceptable, great even, to sleep with one of his closest friends and band mates. Neither of them was complaining; in fact, Jun took to it pretty enthusiastically and raised the bar each time they got down to it. It was a quick-fix solution to a short-term problem that had the both of them soon forgetting their misgivings about Sho. The constant sexual tension that neither of them got to resolve anywhere else with anybody else (it was decidedly too risky to try one-nighters with girls) was quickly taken care of with a quick visit to the bathroom or an innocent sleepover at one of their houses.

And it was relatively easy, for the first months at least, to hide it from the others and the company under the guise of being “just really good friends” and using this as pretext to always hang out in private. Their managers were pretty pleased to see that they were finally getting along.

Aside from Nino, Sho was the only other person in Arashi with the deadly combination of a sharp mind and watchful eye. Normally, nothing went amiss with him, but never once did he catch on to anything odd and was way too preoccupied with numerous filming shoots and school engagements. Ohno was always either concerned with (over)sleeping or fighting off Nino’s increasingly forceful on-stage advances. Aiba was always suspicious of one thing or another, often discussing his thoughts with Ohno, but none of his theories ever held any real weight. At least, to anyone that wasn’t Nino and Jun themselves. If Aiba were to declare to everyone in the room at large, “I think Matsujun and Nino are dating and having sex!”, the staffers would most likely be doubtful, give him a smack on the head for being perverted and push him off to do something productive for once, like _work_. Besides, a large majority of their avid fans were too hooked on the new phenomenon of Nino being an item with Ohno to notice anything otherwise; it as an unorthodox but convenient arrangement that quite honestly excited both Nino and Jun.

One night they are at Nino’s house, caught up in the usual deal. Jun’s house was nearly always out of the question really, because one or both of his parents were typically at home during all hours of the day (and night). Nobody was home at Nino’s tonight, all out (his mother at work until two a.m., and unsurprisingly he had no idea where his sister had taken off to). So, really, they’re in a position to make as much noise as they want without bothering anyone.

Jun was currently taking that notion to heart quite passionately. He was on top. Nino, as always, is beneath him and being slammed repeatedly into his own wooden headboard. It doesn’t hurt as much as he thinks it should; it’s a disturbing kind of pleasure that fires him up even more. His senses are blinded by a continuous high that never stops feeling good and mutes all the pain for a bit. Jun pounds into him ruthlessly, giving no space for breathing, but Nino gives back just as hard with all he has in his arsenal. He whines in the high, slightly girlish way he knows Jun likes, and then proceeds to lock his ankles tightly around Jun’s torso until his heels are digging into the tail of Jun’s spine.

It intensifies everything all at once. Jun swears violently at the sudden tightness and comes first with a trembling hybrid of a moan and a sob, burying his nose deep in the crook of Nino’s soaked neck and bites down _hard_ on the skin he finds there. Nino lets loose a yelp and his free hand slides down from Jun’s back to grab fistfuls of sheet. His other hand furiously tends to his own seeping cock.

“Fuck you,” Jun mutters as he generously rides out the last vestiges of his high, rocking in and out one too many times just to tease.

“Back… at you…” Nino manages back breathlessly, his eyes screwed shut in concentration. Just when he thinks Jun is done for that session, he withdraws and then slams back in one final time to prove a point that Nino is starting to love. He pulls out completely after that and leans away to dispose of his condom.

Jun watches intently as Nino lets out a long string of sensitive noises, twisting this way and that and pumping himself steadily. The pace was gradually losing momentum though. He snorts a little when Nino lets go and flops his head back on the pillow. He rolls his head back and runs both of his hands through his saturated hair, whimpering incoherently.

It was clear what had happened. Nino had exerted his own limits without pacing himself and it had proved to be too much to handle. Not even a release was enough to get an exhausted Nino moving again. He looks absolutely finished, but not in every sense of the word. Jun has seen Nino reach his physical limit once or twice before, and this was it. He needed help.

Without warning, Jun latches his hand around Nino’s cock tightly, impulsively deciding to help bring him over the edge. It wasn’t going to come easy though; he was not one to hand over a luxury like that to Nino without making it interesting at least. Once Nino has enough energy to look down, Jun warns Nino with his eyes.

“I want to see your face when you come, okay? So sit up and stop being a lazy ass for once.”

But Jun leans down and whispers feverish and indecipherable (but undoubtedly filthy) words into Nino’s ear, licking the shell of it and laughing breathily. All the while he grips the base of Nino’s cock tightly to delay him from doing just that – coming. Nino’s ears are bright red and fizzling with static. He keens beautifully and whines again in response, muttering something about Jun and self-contradictions.

“Are you going to help me or not?” he asks in one agitated breath, shivering and writhing fitfully beneath. Jun only laughs again and pumps Nino accordingly, paying attention to the hitches in his breath every now and then, only to further deprive Nino of his orgasm by sliding straight to the base again.

The poor guy is sinking into sexual turmoil before his eyes, but Jun notices one important thing. Nino is actually letting him carry on with this torture. He could sit up at any given time, overpower Jun and kick him out of his house. If he really wanted to.  
But he isn’t – and Jun absolutely intends to abuse this atypically agreeable side of Nino.

“I love seeing you struggle underneath me, you know.”

Nino practically wheezes as he forces himself up into a semi-sitting position, bringing the pillow underneath his back to prop himself up at a comfortable angle.

“It might be fun for you,” he pants helplessly while throwing his head to the side at an unexpected series of long, gradual strokes from Jun’s hand, “but I need to come right now or… I’m going to fucking explode. Do you want—ah, it’s not _fair_ … please— _please_ , Jun-kun…” Jun promptly spits on the top of Nino’s cock and replaces the dry friction with a warm slickness that has Nino pathetically thrusting into the air. He’s running out of options and quickly changes his approach to persuade Jun. “Do you want to see my face or not?”

Jun smiles impishly in return and moves forward into Nino’s space, keeping his hand on the twitching cock, and licks a long, patient trail down Nino’s chest. It heaves with short breaths as he suckles heavily on one nipple and deliberately lets his own cock brush against Nino’s, moving roughly a little against the friction.

“Fuck… Jun-kun, seriously—”

Jun skips the rest of his middle, drags out one long wet kiss right where Nino’s happy trail would be, and then heads straight south.

He removes his hand, pushes away Nino’s one that’s trying in vain to interfere – “Keep your hands by your fucking sides,” he orders, and Nino meekly complies, holding himself up on either side of the bed.

And then Jun thinks better of his haste to keep Nino pliant and submissive, grabbing for one of them and holding it tightly in his own. He twists their fingers together until Nino’s skin goes red raw and his knuckles are white.

Jun’s only just noticing that he does this a lot with Nino. Neither of them is particularly keen on the idea of being touched, but this is unlike the set of fears that come with being tapped on the shoulder, or poked in the side. The reasoning behind it is that it makes him feel like they’re connected in every possible way during sex – it keeps Nino grounded, and it also makes it less likely that they’ll force it out of their minds later on and distance themselves from each other. Nino wholeheartedly agrees with that logic, clearly, doesn’t even try to let go.

Jun patiently takes in the head of Nino’s cock for starters, starting out small, blowing cold air on the wet parts he had created all over before. He sucks in and out a few times experimentally just to see how many more times he can get a “please” out of Nino. Jun is very unused to seeing Nino in such a hapless state and being essentially reduced to begging for the basics, so he indulges a little and even manages a last-minute “fuck me” out of Nino. And Jun would gladly do that, but he’s a little too satisfied with playing around with Nino in this way.

Eventually his friend’s patience wears thin and evaporates. With a hiss, Nino’s head hits the pillow again and both his hands roughly locate Jun’s head, shoving it down gracelessly until the inside of Jun’s mouth consists of nothing but cock and saliva. Nino’s a little too far gone to care about Jun’s lack of oxygen right now – and he kind of deserves it for making him wait so long.

Jun’s hand is still locked in an iron-grip to the left on the sheets, squeezing it hard in warning, but Nino dazedly ignores it. The length of his cock goes to the very back of Jun’s throat every time he slides in and he bucks restlessly to an irregular and selfish rhythm before he warns Jun off with three simple, slightly disconnected words: “Jun”, “fuck” and “coming”.

He holds himself in for that last moment of built-up pressure, but at the last word, Jun chokes out and manages to relieve his mouth of Nino.

“What…” is all Nino gasps out in delayed surprise, his hips going rigid at the loss. His mouth is slack and gaping. “Aaaaah, fuck, _why_ …”

He grasps blindly at long strands of Jun’s hair, obviously trying to get a grip again and force Jun back down, but he laughs in the face of Nino’s desperation. He eyes Nino’s twitching cock in amusement, pre-come trickling from the tip of it and his own saliva coating the entire breadth of it. Then his eyes go unconfused and catch sight of Nino’s face rising in the background; red, sweaty, crumpled and silently soliciting for a release of any kind.

“Poor Kazu. What? Can’t talk? Cat got your tongue?” Jun teases in succession, relentlessly poking a finger at the sensitively hard cock towering in front of his face.

“Mm. I think I can manage one last  _fuck you_ , Matsumoto Jun…” Nino rasps out with a small, apathetic laugh. “Are you going to leave me hanging here?”

That gets him thinking a bit. Jun knows it’s nearing midnight now; he heard the last commuter train rattle by near Nino’s window some five minutes ago – someone in the Ninomiya family was bound to return home soon. He can’t afford to drag this out any longer than he really needs to. Even if sexually torturing Nino is the most fun he’s had all year.

Without any further preamble, Jun pushes Nino’s thighs apart and stands, hovering over the limp body. He doesn’t give any warning and thrusts four of his fingers clumsily into Nino’s mouth.

“I’m assuming you don’t have any lube?” he mutters, looking down into Nino’s wide eyes, meaning he had guessed right. “You were pretty loose tonight. Been practicing by yourself lately?”

Giving no verbal response, and not because he’s got his mouth full of Jun’s hand, Nino just lazily sucks on the digits, daring enough to bite down on the index finger. Jun lets out an impressed hiss and returns down to Nino’s ass, squatting and staring directly into Nino’s hole. He prods at it with one finger, finds it to be a little unresponsive and instead ducks forward to shove his tongue in. Nino reacts way too positively, writhing and sliding back on the bed a little in shock.

Jun re-emerges and casts Nino an unsure look. “Good?”

Nino nods numbly. There is a reason why. “You’re fucking full of surprises.”

And Jun lives up to that impression of himself, stretching Nino open with his free hand by forcing one thigh away and sinking two of his fingers in at once. Nino thrashes over the sheets and instinctively stretches one of his legs out onto Jun’s shoulder so a better angle can be reached.

Once Jun’s inserted the last finger, even trying to squeeze in a fourth to see how far Nino can go, Nino is loose enough to be fingered quite effortlessly and he slides them in and out in a rough motion. Nino clenches around him repeatedly, clearly tense even after all that they had done so far tonight. He mounts himself up on one leg and levels his mouth with Nino’s cock.

Jun takes it all in one go first, his saliva dribbling to the bottom and pooling at the hair surrounding Nino’s cock. Nino lets out one long howl at that, and after that, Jun picks up the speed with both his fingers and his mouth, setting a pace that he’s not sure he’ll be able to keep up for long without his neck getting tired. Meanwhile Nino is reduced to a quivering mess overhead, not even capable of the three words he had said the last time he was about to come.

It was obvious in the way he was shaking and rooting himself up off of the bed (his hips also trying to meet Jun’s fingers at the same time and not quite making it) that Nino was very near. For how obscure he could be in everyday life, Nino could be endlessly transparent in bed and didn’t fuck around. He left that to Jun, to make things more fun.

There seems to be a bit of reluctance to come while he’s still in Jun’s mouth though; Jun feels Nino contract over his fingers in an attempt to sit up. He scrambles up and still finds the time to slide himself over the long fingers and fuck them a few more times, pulling out from Jun’s mouth mid-suck and getting on his knees. Without any more help and looking utterly desperate, he lets himself go all over Jun’s face with one weak, drawn-out moan, tweaking one of his own nipples hard. Jun joins him, the same slick fingers that had just been inside him pinching impossibly hard with fingernails.

Once he’s sure he’s done, Nino wobbles and collapses back down onto the bed in a full-bodied slump, taking his time with coming back down to earth and steadying his breathing again. Yeah, Jun made things fun all right. That was one of the most encompassing orgasms he’d had in a long time. He moves his head back against the headboard limply and covers his face, unable to look at Jun’s. His senses were returning to him slowly, and of course, Jun was going to be pissed off about what he’d done. Not wanting to come in Jun’s mouth and instead squirting all over his face wasn’t exactly the alternative route he’d been going for.

“Shit, I’m really sorry, Jun…”

“It’s fine,” Jun’s cracked voice assures from the floor. Nino peeks through a gap in his fingers and spots Jun wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Jun sounded spent. Nino tries to convince himself that it’s because Jun kept making so much noise when they had been fucking earlier, that his throat was probably gone from all the groaning and the swearing. That doesn’t explain the underlying displeasure though.

By the time Nino has the stomach to open his eyes completely, he sees the thick white liquid oozing down Jun’s cheeks and nose, some even smeared across his left eye. It’s quite a sight, maybe enough to stir something else in him, but now really isn’t the time. He’s gauging Jun’s reaction, still not sure how he had taken this. But Jun, for lack of the reaction Nino was seeking, started laughing outright with one hand covering his splattered eye.

“I said I was sorry,” Nino mutters again, leaning sideways for a tissue on his bedside table. He uses one to wipe his own forehead, and then crawls over to Jun. Ignoring Jun’s outstretched hand, he dabs at the mess himself. “That was… the first time you did that to me. I know I swallow yours, but I wasn’t sure if _you_  wanted to swallow _mine_ …”

Jun blinks beneath Nino’s obsessive wiping down. He simply swipes a palm down his left cheek, catching some of the come on his middle finger ( _why_ did it have to be the middle finger?). He licks at it, smearing it deliberately all over his tongue as a show for Nino. He makes a face when the sharp taste hits him, but he swallows it wholeheartedly. Jun looks up defiantly at Nino.

“Does that answer your question?”

It does. And admittedly, Nino doesn’t quite feel whole after watching that. Jun still has his finger in his mouth, swirling it around. He nods weakly, gulping, and finishes wiping the last bit of come from Jun’s nose.

“I didn’t mind it, by the way,” Jun says coolly. “I didn’t even think of doing that myself. I want to do it sometime to you. Really soon.”

“Sure. Any… any time. Name your time and place and I’m there.”

Jun rests himself placidly against the headboard, his breathing still a little scratchy. Nino crawls over hesitantly to join him, but he drags Nino closer until he’s splayed on Jun’s lap with his legs hooked around Jun’s waist. He reinstates their hands, fastidiously making sure that all of their fingers are intertwined, holding them up between their faces and smiling. Jun notes the way Nino stares at their hands, worry tinging his features as Jun drops them and holds Nino closer.

“I think this is becoming something more,” Nino then remarks, sounding only mildly concerned in juxtaposition to the panicky _thump, thump, thump_ banging from his chest. He’s not scared to let Jun hear it.

“Is that okay for you?” Jun asks neutrally, angling his face to the stretch of Nino’s neck and leaving a lingering kiss there. He digs his nose into the skin and breathes in, feels Nino looking upwards. “Is becoming something more necessarily a bad thing?”

It _really_ isn’t.

“It’s just…” Nino trails off restively, keeping his eyes fixed on the ceiling for something to do while Jun continues his conquest for covering skin. Their hands fall and part when Jun starts using them to massage around Nino’s waist. “You said when this got too real that we should stop. You didn’t want another situation like Sho-chan, and neither did I.”

Stopping just before the space between Nino’s pectorals, Jun lets out a long breath he didn’t know he’d been stopping from leaving his mouth. He holds his cheek to the skin there, feels the erratic pounding of the heart inside. It’s an unconscious movement, but he sees that Nino was right.

Jun withdraws himself thoughtfully, sitting back and stretching his arms around to grab Nino’s ankles and massage them with his thumbs. He mentally notes that Nino used the words “ _when_ this got too real”, in place of “ _if_ this got too real”, but it doesn’t bother him as much as it might have once before. He should have seen this coming, in all fairness. Nino took nearly everything seriously, and although this started out as fun and games and a way to find an easy release, it was only natural that it was going to develop into that “something more”. Maybe Jun had just been hoping it would be a little later than sooner.

They hold each other’s eye for a moment before Nino wraps his arms around Jun’s shoulders, nuzzling into the nape of his neck and nudging his forehead against the damp hairline there. He emerges from it briefly with a watery smile. Jun swings his arm back around and is pulled in for a kiss. Nino sinks forward longingly into Jun’s body and Jun’s thumbs dig into his cheeks tightly, tenderly.

When Nino pulls away about two inches, still breathing in the same heated air as Jun, he cautiously admits, “I dunno about you, but I’ve gotten too used to this. And I really like you, Matsujun.”

In other words, _I don’t want to stop this._

“I like you too, Nino,” Jun responds faintly with his eyes still closed. _Neither do I._ He moves his face down, nose brushing against Nino’s chin, and his tongue darts out to lick at the little mole there. Nino’s small but fervent moan went straight to his dick. Nino’s voice in any capacity was amazing but in bed, while they were in the midst of being intimate or even afterwards, it started to become something of a fetish for Jun. Nino holds the back of Jun’s neck and pushes, bringing their foreheads forward and letting them bump together gently, a comfortable weight.

So it was all out in the open now. Those words they just exchanged were not empty. As well as serving for context, they were also very sincere confessions.

But that was moving into dangerous territory. As much as Jun would have liked a conventional relationship, they just couldn’t. Not now, not ever, not as long as they were in Johnny’s. He liked this arrangement. It was always fun and euphoric, not to mention an incredible head-rush to know that they were up to something that nobody else would ever know about. But it was admittedly a constant, niggling worry in the back of his and Nino’s minds – but Jun’s especially. The off chance that they would get caught being careless or carrying it out somewhere that wasn’t either of their houses, even though Jun was meticulous with their meeting places and distributed how much time they could spend doing stuff before they had to get back to the real world.

Or that eventual possibility of drawing too close and then when things ended, or if Arashi ended, they wouldn’t be able to revive anything at all. Was it really worth it, in the end?

 

* * *

 

Some years later, they fizzled out, and the “break-up” (if you could call it that, considering they were in each other’s faces day in, day out) was mutual and concise. Jun arrived at the realization that, as much as he loved doing things with (and to) Nino, he still very much liked women. Nino thought it might have had something to do with Jun’s fateful meeting with Inoue Mao and the relationship rumours that would continue to hound them for years on end, but Jun never said much on the subject and he and Nino still remained pretty close.

At the same time, Nino privately had an epiphany of his own. Being with Jun had only doubled what he felt for Sho. All that time he spent with Jun, those irascible feelings didn’t change or go away – Sho hadn’t exactly made it tolerable to be around him, with those damn muscles and the working out and the constant psychological warfare – but Jun had understood and tried his best to compensate before they inevitably stopped trying.

“You’ll get over him one day,” were Jun’s outgoing words of sympathy. “I did. It just happens. There are some people you can’t shake, and others you can just get over like _that_. We just can’t help who it is sometimes.”

Nino was twenty-four and very busy professionally at the time of their joint epiphanies. He felt compelled to tell Jun that, technically, that little crush on Sho that he’d had was back during their teens, when feelings were irrational and propelled out of control by the smallest things and you just had to deal with the impossibilities they kept throwing at you. It also depended on the age you were when you fell into these things – of course that determined how hard it would affect you. It also mattered how deep the friendship was before it morphed into something entirely different.

He and Jun were a perfect example of this pattern. However, they had done the right thing and parted ways at the right time. And that didn’t really break Nino’s heart.

Instead, Nino asked, “I always wondered… did anything ever happen between you two?”

“With Sho?” Jun let out a blunt, uncaring laugh in the way he usually reacted at the mention of Sho’s name nowadays. “Full disclosure?”

He was not jealous, not even remotely. It was a matter of pure curiosity. Nino and Sho themselves used to fool around, after all. But those two words do scare Nino. He expected downright filthy things, little sexual pastimes that Jun also tried out with Sho before he moved to Nino (would Jun even lay bare such things to Nino?). Jun was also aware, in brutal detailing, of Nino’s feelings for Sho, and Nino wondered if Jun would exaggerate a little.

But Jun just blew out a puff of air and folded his arms. “We kissed, once. That’s all. I must have been…fifteen, sixteen? It was sometime before debut, I think.” Jun then reached out and rubbed Nino’s shoulder softly upon seeing the stricken expression unfurling on his face; it wasn’t because of Jun’s revelation. “One day, Nino. One day.”

To be honest, Nino was really sick of waiting for that day to come.

 

 


End file.
